text:
Summary: Business Profiles on Google My Business can only be created for businesses that either have a physical location that customers can visit, or that travel to visit customers where they are. Creating a successful Business Profile that won't be suspended requires avoiding prohibited content, accurately reflecting your business, and complying with the rest of the policies below.
We've come up with a list of guidelines for local businesses to maintain high quality information on Google. Following these guidelines helps avoid common problems, including changes to your information, or, in some cases, removal of your business information from Google.
For best results using Google My Business:
- Represent your business as it's consistently represented and recognized in the real world across signage, stationery, and other branding.
- Make sure your address and/or service area is accurate and precise.
- Choose the fewest number of categories it takes to describe your overall core business.
- There should only be one profile per business, as this can cause problems with how your information displays on Google Maps and Search.
Brands, organizations, artists, and other online-only businesses aren't eligible for Google My Business Profiles.
Basic guidelines
Tip: If you would like to receive one-on-one guidance and tailored recommendations on how to make the most out of your profile, consider booking an appointment with Small Business Advisors.
Eligible businessesIn order to qualify for a Business Profile on Google, a business must make in-person contact with customers during its stated hours.
There are some exceptions:
- ATMs, video-rental kiosks, and express mail dropboxes are permitted. If you add these locations, you must include contact information for customers to get help.
- Seasonal businesses, like an ice-skating rink only open in winter months, are eligible. These businesses must display permanent signage at their location year-round.
- Virtual Kitchens are permitted. Virtual Kitchens are professional food preparation and cooking facilities set up to prepare delivery-only meals via third-party services. They are also referred to as Ghost Kitchens and Cloud Kitchens. A Virtual Kitchen should create their Business Profile as a service area business.
The following businesses are not eligible for a Business Profile:
- Rental or for-sale properties such as vacation homes, model homes, or vacant apartments. Sales or leasing offices, however, are eligible for verification.
- An ongoing service, class, or meeting at a location that you don't own or have the authority to represent.
- Lead generation agents or companies.
Any individual or company that manages business information on Google My Business for a business that they don't own is considered an authorized representative. Examples: a third-party SEO/SEM company; a friend of the business owner; an online ordering, scheduling, or booking provider; and an affiliate network provider.
Authorized representatives must:
- Never claim a Business Profile without express consent from the business owner.
- Never make false, misleading, or unrealistic claims.
- Never use harassing, abusive, or untrustworthy tactics with potential or existing customers.
- Always work directly with the business owner to complete verification. Learn more about verification.
- Always ensure that the business owner understands what Google My Business is and where Google My Business data is used. Authorized representatives should share the following resources with the business's owner:
- Always keep the business owner informed about which actions the authorized representative will take on the Business Profile.
- Always follow Guidelines for representing your business on Google. Note that the phone number and website for a Business Profile should always be the single, authoritative phone number and website for the business and be verifiable by the business owner. Website content must be owned and managed by the business owner.
- Always respond to management access requests promptly, and always transfer Business Profile ownership to the business owner immediately upon request. Authorized representatives must, whenever possible, encourage the business owner to create an account, own the Business Profile, and add authorized representatives as managers. Learn more about transferring ownership.
Failure to adhere to these policies may result in a suspension for the Business Profile and/or account.
Published content should highlight what makes your business unique. You can use this field to provide useful information on services and products offered, as well as the mission and history of your business.
You should be upfront and honest about the information provided, focusing on content that is relevant and useful to your customers to understand your business. Content that's irrelevant to your business or has no clear association with it isn't allowed. Refer to our overall guidelines for representing your business on Google.
Content published in this field should not:
- Be misleading to users. Do not provide inaccurate or false information about your business or the services and products offered.
- Display low-quality, irrelevant, or distracting content. For example, misspellings, gimmicky character use, gibberish, etc.
- Focus on special promotions, prices, and offer sale. Examples of content not allowed include, "Everything on sale, -50%" and "Best bagels in town for $5!"
- Display links. No links of any type are allowed.
- Display offensive or inappropriate content:
- Harassing, bullying, or hateful content. Published content must not promote hatred or incite violence against individuals or groups based on ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
- Content containing obscene, profane, or offensive language.
- Terrorist content. We do not permit terrorist organizations to use this service for any purpose, including recruitment. We also strictly prohibit content related to terrorism, such as content that promotes terrorist acts, incites violence, or celebrates terrorist attacks. If posting content related to terrorism for an educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic purpose, be mindful to provide enough information so viewers understand the context.
- Sexually suggestive or explicit content. Content must not include profanity, sexually graphic and offensive slang terms, terms that are common signals for pedophilia, content that promotes pedophilia, bestiality, or sexual violence, or content that promotes escort services or other services that may be interpreted as providing sexual acts in exchange for compensation.
- Display unpermitted content:
- Do not upload content related to the sale of dangerous and illegal products or services.
- Do not upload content that exploits or abuses children.
Your name should reflect your business' real-world name, as used consistently on your storefront, website, stationery, and as known to customers. Accurately representing your business name helps customers find your business online.
Add additional details like address and/or service area, business hours, and category in the other sections of your business information.
For example, if you were creating a Business Profile for a 24-hour coffee shop in downtown San Francisco called Shelly's Coffee, you would enter that business information as:
- Business name: Shelly's Coffee
- Address: 3247 Poppy Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
- Hours: Open 24 hours
- Category: Coffee shop
Including unnecessary information in your business name is not permitted, and could result in your Business Profile being suspended. Refer to the specific examples below to determine what you can and can't include in your business name.
Throughout the examples below, names or parts of names in italics would not be permitted.
Your name must not include:
- Marketing taglines.
- Not acceptable: "TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank", "GNC Live Well*".
- Acceptable: "TD Bank", "GNC"
- Store codes.
- Not acceptable: "The UPS Store - 2872"
- Acceptable: "The UPS Store"
- Trademark/registered signs.
- Not acceptable: "Burger King®"
- Acceptable: "Burger King"
- Fully capitalized words (with the exception of acronyms) or unnecessary spaces.
- Not acceptable: "SUBWAY"
- Acceptable: "Subway", "KFC", "IHOP", "JCPenney"
- Business hours information, including closed/open status.
- Not acceptable: "Regal Pizzeria Open 24 hours", "Sears Outlet (Closed)"
- Acceptable: "Regal Pizzeria", "Sears Outlet"
- Phone numbers or website URLs, unless they reflect your business's consistently used and recognized real world representation.
- Not acceptable: "Airport Direct 1-888-557-8953", "webuyanycar.com"
- Acceptable: "Airport Direct", "1-800-Got-Junk"
- Special characters (e.g. %&$@/") or irrelevant legal terms unless they are part of your business's real world representation
- Not Acceptable: "Shell Pay@Pump", "Re/Max, LLC", "LAZ Parking Ltd"
- Acceptable: "Shell", "Re/Max", "LAZ Parking", "Toys ''R'' Us", "H&M", "T.J.Maxx"
- Service or product information about your business, unless this information is part of its real world representation or this information is needed to identify a department within a business (see "Departments"). Service information is best represented by categories (see "Categories").
- Not acceptable: "Verizon Wireless 4G LTE", "Midas Auto Service Experts"
- Acceptable: "Verizon Wireless", "Midas", "Best Buy Mobile", "Advance Auto Parts", "JCPenney Portrait Studios"
- Location information, such as neighborhood, city, or street name, unless it is part of your business's consistently-used and recognized real-world representation. Your name must not include street address or direction information.
- Not acceptable: "Holiday Inn (I-93 at Exit 2)", "U.S. Bank ATM - 7th & Pike - Parking Garage Lobby near Elevator", "Equinox near SOHO"
- Acceptable: "Holiday Inn Salem", "U.S. Bank ATM", "Equinox SOHO", "University of California Berkeley"
- Containment information indicating that your business is located inside another business (whether or not the businesses are part of the same organization).
- Not acceptable: "Chase ATM (in Duane Reade)", "Apple Store at Stanford Shopping Center", "Benefit Brow Bar - Bloomingdales", "Sam's Club Tire & Battery (part of Sam's Club)", "Geek Squad (inside Best Buy)"
- Acceptable: "Chase ATM", "Apple Store", "Benefit Brow Bar", "Sam's Club Tire & Battery", "Geek Squad"
There are additional guidelines for multi-location stores (chains and brands), departments, and individual practitioners (e.g. doctors, lawyers, and real estate agents) below.
Use a precise, accurate address and/or service area to describe your business location. P.O. boxes or mailboxes located at remote locations are not acceptable.
- Create your Business Profile for your actual, real-world location.
- Suite numbers, floors, building numbers, and so on may also be included. Only include information like cross-streets and nearby landmarks in regions where the official street address doesn't accurately pinpoint the business's location.
- If you must specify a mailbox or suite number:
- Enter your physical address as "Address Line 1."
- Enter your mailbox or suite number as "Address Line 2."
- If your business rents a physical mailing address but doesn't operate out of that location, also known as a virtual office, that location is not eligible for a Business Profile on Google.
- Businesses can't list an office at a co-working space unless that office maintains clear signage, receives customers at the location during business hours, and is staffed during business hours by your business staff.
- Don't include information in address lines that doesn't pertain to your business's physical location, like URLs or keywords.
- Don't create more than one page for each location of your business, either in a single account or multiple accounts.
- Individual practitioners and departments within businesses, universities, hospitals, and government buildings may have separate pages. For more info, go to specific guidelines about individual practitioners and departments.
- If your address doesn't have a street number, or the system can't find it, you can pin your business's location directly on the map.
Service-area businesses
Service-area businesses, or businesses that serve customers at their locations, should have one profile for the central office or location with a designated service area. Service-area businesses can't list a "virtual" office unless that office is staffed during business hours.
Some businesses, like auto repair shops that have a garage for repairs and offer road side service, are hybrid service-area businesses. These businesses can show their storefront address and designate a service area in Google My Business. If you serve customers at your address and want to set a service area, your business location should be staffed by your team and able to receive customers during its stated hours.
Google determines how best to display your business address based on your business information and information from other sources.
Storefront versus service-area businesses
If your business doesn't have a storefront with clear signage but travels to customers at their physical locations, you're allowed one service-area Business Profile.
If you have different locations for your service business, with separate service areas and separate staff at each location, you're allowed one profile for each location. The boundaries of your profile's overall service area shouldn't extend farther than about 2 hours of driving time from where your business is based. For some businesses, larger service areas may be appropriate.
Learn more about service-area businesses.
If you're a service-area business, you should hide your business address from customers.
- For example, if you're a plumber and run your business from your residential address, clear the address from your Business Profile.
Website & phone
Provide a phone number that connects to your individual business location as directly as possible, or provide one website that represents your individual business location.
- Use a local phone number instead of a central call center helpline number whenever possible.
- Do not provide phone numbers or URLs that redirect or "refer" users to landing pages or phone numbers other than those of the actual business, including pages created on social media sites.
- The phone number must be under the direct control of the business.
- Additional phone numbers can be used on Google My Business websites and other local surfaces.
- Premium-rate telephone numbers are not allowed. These phone numbers charge high rates to the caller.
Business hours
Provide your regular customer-facing hours of operation. If applicable, you may use your current seasonal hours as your regular hours. You may also specify special hours for particular days, like holidays or special events.
Certain types of businesses shouldn't provide hours, including those with varied hours (like schedules for different types of activities, including showtimes, worship services, or classes) and those that operate only by appointment. Examples of businesses that shouldn't provide hours include, but are not limited to:
- Indoor lodging such as: Hotels, motels, and apartment buildings/complexes
- Schools and universities
- Movie theaters
- Transportation services and airports
- Event venues and natural features
If your business has departments (see "Departments"), provide the business hours for each department on that department's separate Business Profile, and provide the business hours for the main business on the main Business Profile
Sets of hours
If your business has multiple sets of hours, refer to these guidelines for particular industries:
- Banks: Use lobby hours if possible. Otherwise, use drive-through hours. An ATM attached to a bank can use its own separate Business Profile with its own, different hours.
- Car dealerships: Use car sales hours. If hours for new car sales and pre-owned car sales differ, use the new sales hours.
- Gas stations: Use the hours for your gas pumps.
- Restaurants: Use the hours when diners can sit down and dine in your restaurant. Otherwise, use takeout hours. If neither of those is possible, use drive-through hours, or, as a last resort, delivery hours.
- Storage facilities: Use office hours. Otherwise, use front gate hours.
- You can also set More hours to highlight times for specific services.
- Tip: In general, you should set More hours as a subset of your primary hours.
Seasonal hours
If your business has seasonal hours, use the following guidelines:
- During the season in which your business is open, set your regular hours of operation. You may set special hours for holidays, temporary closures, or other events.
- You can also indicate that your business is open only for a specific seasonal period in your business description.
- During off-season, you can mark your business as temporarily closed.
- Set your regular business hours when your business reopens.
Categories help your customers find accurate, specific results for services they're interested in. In order to keep your business information accurate and live, make sure that you:
- Use as few categories as possible to describe your overall core business from the provided list.
- Choose categories that are as specific as possible, but representative of your main business.
- Do not use categories solely as keywords or to describe attributes of your business.
- Do not use categories that pertain to other businesses that are nearby or related, such as a business physically contained within your business or an entity that contains your business.
Select categories that complete the statement: "This business IS a" rather than "this business HAS a ." The goal is to describe your business holistically rather than a list of all the services it offers, products it sells, or amenities it features.
You should focus primarily on adding the most specific categories for your business; we'll do the rest behind the scenes. For instance, when you select a specific category like "Golf Resort", Google implicitly includes more general categories like "Resort Hotel", "Hotel", and "Golf Course." Feel free to skip adding any category that seems redundant with a more specific category you selected. If you can't find a category for your business, choose one that is more general. Google can also detect category information from your website and from mentions about your business throughout the web.
For example:
- "Papa John's" offers pizza takeout and delivery but does not offer on-premises dining. It should use the category "Pizza Delivery" and additional category "Pizza Takeout" (instead of the less specific "Delivery Restaurant" or "Takeout Restaurant").
- "Navy Federal Credit Union" should use the category "Federal Credit Union" (rather than the less specific "Bank").
- "Super 8" is a motel with an onsite swimming pool. It should use the category "Motel" rather than "Hotel" and should not include "Swimming Pool" as a category.
- "24 Hour Fitness" should choose the category "Health Club" (and not its amenities "Gym" or "Swimming Pool").
- "A1 Check Cashing" should use the category "Check Cashing Service" (rather than the less specific "Banking and Finance").
- "Wendy's" is a fast food hamburger restaurant that also offers some desserts on its menu. "Wendy's" should choose the category "Fast Food Restaurant", and the additional category "Hamburger Restaurant", but not use the category "Dessert Restaurant".
If your business contains another business that your organization does not own and operate, only use categories that represent your business.
- "Starbucks", which has the category "Coffee Shop", is operated inside "Barnes and Nobles", which has the category "Book Store" (and does not have the category "Coffee Shop").
- "Cardtronics ATM", which has the category "ATM", is operated inside "7-Eleven", which has the category "Convenience Store" (and does not have the category "ATM").
- "Nobu" has the category "Restaurant" and is operated inside "Hard Rock Hotel", which has the category "Hotel" (and does not have the category "Restaurant").
The following types of co-located businesses should each have their own page. If you need to use both categories for the same business location, create two pages instead. Be sure to use a different name for the second business (also see "Departments").
- A Restaurant/Cafe/Bar inside of a Hotel/Motel
- A Pharmacy inside of a Supermarket/Grocery Store
- A Gas Station next to a Supermarket/Grocery Store
There are 2 kinds of menus:
- A menu for an eating and drinking establishment (like restaurants or cocktail bars) that lists the complete set of food and drink items that are available at the business.
- A menu for a service business like a barber, spa, or car repair shop that lists the complete set of services that are available at the business.
Learn more
- The menu should be representative of the items and services that are available for customers at the business. Full menus can be meal-specific (like breakfast, lunch, or dinner) and have links to other menu pages. For example, you may choose to link to your business's dinner menu, which in turn may include links to the breakfast and lunch menus.
- Sample menus that only list "popular items" (or similar excerpts) should not be submitted.
- Menu URLs can't be direct links to third-party ordering or delivery services.
- Third parties that manage Business Profiles on behalf of clients must notify and have the consent of the business owner to submit a menu URL for a business.
Chains, departments, and individual practitioners
Chains and brands
Maintaining consistent names and categories across all of your business locations helps users quickly identify your business on Google Maps and search results.
All locations must have the same name unless the business's real world representation consistently varies from location to location. All locations must also have the same category if they provide the same service.
Name consistency
All business locations within the same country must have the same name for all locations. For example, all Home Depot locations should use the name "The Home Depot" rather than "Home Depot" or "The Home Depot at Springfield".
There are two exceptions to this policy:
- If you have multiple types of business--sub-brands, multiple departments, or various types of operations such as retail and wholesale--these distinct entities may also have a distinct name so long as it is consistently applied to all locations of that business.
- Acceptable name variations: "Walmart Supercenter" and "Walmart Express"; "Nordstrom" and "Nordstrom Rack"; "Gap" and "babyGap"
- If some of your locations consistently use a different name in the real world - on their storefront, website, stationery etc. - these locations can use this different name.
- Acceptable name variations: "Intercontinental Mark Hopkins San Francisco" and "Intercontinental New York Barclay"; "PFK" (for locations in Quebec) and "KFC" (for locations in the US and rest of Canada)
Category consistency
All locations of a business must share the one category that best represents the business. If you have multiple types of locations (e.g. sub-brands, multiple departments, or various types of operations such as retail, distribution center, and office), this rule only applies within each of these sub-groups.
- All "Gap Kids" have the category "Children's Clothing Store"
- All "Goodyear Auto Service Center" have the category "Tire Shop"; they also all have the category "Auto Repair Shop"
- All "PetSmart" have the category "Pet Supply Store"; some locations may have other categories ("Pet Store", "Dog Day Care Center")
Two or more brands at the same location
If your business location combines two or more brands, do not combine the brand names into a single Business Profile. Instead, pick one brand's name for the Business Profile. If the brands operate independently, you may use a separate Profile for each brand at this location.
- Not Acceptable: "KFC / Taco Bell" or "Dunkin' Donuts / Baskin Robbins"
- Acceptable: "Taco Bell", "KFC", "Dunkin' Donuts", "Baskin Robbins"
If your business sells another business brand's product(s) or service(s), use only the name of the business, excluding the name of the brand being sold, which can't have a Business Profile for this location.
- Not Acceptable: "Staples / UPS", "America's Tire / Firestone"
- Acceptable: "Staples", "America's Tire"
However, if the business location is an authorized and fully dedicated seller of the branded product or service (sometimes known as a "franchisee"), you may use the underlying brand name when creating the Business Profile.
- Acceptable: "TCC Verizon Wireless Premium Retailer", "U-Haul Neighborhood Dealer"
Your business may be eligible for rebranding if:
- You make a minor name change
- You have multiple locations and the business name changes
If your business meets the rebranding criteria above, you can update your business name by editing your business information.
If your business changes its name but doesn't meet the criteria above, then it's considered a new business. You'll need to mark the existing Business Profile as closed, then create a new Business Profile using your new business name.
Note: If you assume ownership of a Business Profile, you'll first need to have the previous owner add you as an owner and transfer ownership to you.
If you encounter any issues with rebranding, please contact us. You can also ask questions and get answers from experts in the Google My Business Community.
Departments within other businesses, universities, or institutions
Departments within businesses, universities, hospitals, and government institutions may have their own Business Profiles on Google.
Auto dealers and healthcare providers have specific and separate guidelines. Get started with Google My Business for auto dealers and healthcare providers.
Publicly-facing departments that operate as distinct entities should have their own page. The exact name of each department must be different from that of the main business and that of other departments. Typically such departments have a separate customer entrance and should each have distinct categories. Their hours may sometimes differ from those of the main business.
- Acceptable (as distinct Business Profiles):
- "Walmart Vision Center"
- "Sears Auto Center"
- "Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Dermatology"
- Not acceptable (as distinct Business Profiles):
- The Apple products section of Best Buy
- The hot food bar inside Whole Foods Market
For each department, the category that is the most representative of that department must be different from that of the main business and that of other departments.
- The main business "Wells Fargo" has the category "Bank" whereas the department "Wells Fargo Advisors" has the category "Financial Consultant"
- The main business "South Bay Toyota" has the category "Toyota Dealer" whereas the "South Bay Toyota Service & Parts" has the category "Auto Repair Shop" (plus the category "Auto Parts Store")
- The main business "GetGo" has the category "Convenience Store" (plus the category "Sandwich Shop") whereas the department "GetGo Fuel" has the category "Gas Station", and the department "WetGo" has the category "Car Wash"
An individual practitioner is a public-facing professional, typically with their own customer base. Doctors, dentists, lawyers, financial planners, and insurance or real estate agents are all individual practitioners. Business Profiles for practitioners may include title or degree certification (e.g. Dr., MD, JD, Esq., CFA).
An individual practitioner should create their own dedicated Business Profile if:
- They operate in a public-facing role. Support staff should not create their own Business Profiles.
- They can be contacted directly at the verified location during stated hours.
A practitioner shouldn't have multiple Business Profiles to cover all of their specializations. Sales associates or lead generation agents for corporations aren't individual practitioners and aren't eligible for a Business Profile.
Multiple practitioners at one location
If the practitioner is one of several public-facing practitioners at this location:
- The organization should create a Business Profile for this location, separate from that of the practitioner.
- The title of the Business Profile for the practitioner should include only the name of the practitioner, and shouldn't include the name of the organization.
Solo practitioners that belong to branded organizations
If a practitioner is the only public-facing practitioner at a location and represents a branded organization, it's best for the practitioner to share a Business Profile with the organization. Create a single Business Profile, named using the following format: [brand/company]: [practitioner name].
Acceptable: "Allstate: Joe Miller" (if Joe is the sole public-facing practitioner at this Allstate-branded location)
Other items of note
Illegal activities
Fraudulent or illegal activities aren't tolerated on Google and may result in account suspension and removal of business information from search results.
Marketing, promotions, or other contests
Any promotion, marketing, contests, or other giveaways should clearly link to the terms of the activity and provide clear guidelines and qualifications. All such promises, given or implied, should be adhered to.
Note: Google reserves the right to suspend access to Google My Business or other Google Services to individuals or businesses that violate these guidelines, and may work with law enforcement in the event that the violation is unlawful.


text:
First and foremost: if you want to cut to the chase, just download the torrent. If you want the full story, please read on….
Way back when I worked at Symantec, my friend Nick wrote a blog that caused a little bit of trouble for us: Attack of the Facebook Snatchers. I was blog editor at the time, and I went through the usual sign off process and, eventually, published it. Facebook was none too happy, but we fought for it and, in the end, we got to leave the blog up in its original form.
Why do I bring this up? Well last week @FSLabsAdvisor wrote an interesting Tweet: it turns out, by heading to https://www.facebook.com/directory, you can get a list of every searchable user on all of Facebook!
My first idea was simple: spider the lists, generate first-initial-last-name (and similar) lists, then hand them over to @Ithilgore to use in Nmap's awesome new bruteforce tool he's working on, Ncrack. But as I thought more about it, and talked to other people, I realized that this is a scary privacy issue. I can find the name of pretty much every person on Facebook. Facebook helpfully informs you that "[a]nyone can opt out of appearing here by changing their Search privacy settings" – but that doesn't help much anymore considering I already have them all (and you will too, when you download the torrent). Suckers!
Once I have the name and URL of a user, I can view, by default, their picture, friends, information about them, and some other details. If the user has set their privacy higher, at the very least I can view their name and picture. So, if any searchable user has friends that are non-searchable, those friends just opted into being searched, like it or not! Oops :)
The lists
Which brings me to the next topic: the list! I wrote a quick Ruby script (which has since become a more involved Nmap Script that I haven't used for harvesting yet) that I used to download the full directory. I should warn you that it isn't exactly the most user friendly interface – I wrote it for myself, primarily, I'm only linking to it for reference. I don't really suggest you try to recreate my spidering. It's a waste of several hundred gigs of bandwidth.
The results were spectacular. 171 million names (100 million unique). My original plan was to use this list to generate a list of the top usernames (based on first initial last name):
129369 jsmith 79365 ssmith 77713 skhan 75561 msmith 74575 skumar 72467 csmith 71791 asmith 67786 jjohnson 66693 dsmith 66431 akhan
100225 johns 97676 johnm 97310 michaelm 93386 michaels 88978 davids 85481 michaelb 84824 davidm 82677 davidb 81500 johnb 77800 michaelc
Or even the top usernames based on first name dot last name (sorry, I can't link this one due to bandwidth concerns; but it's included in the torrent):
17204 john.smith 7440 david.smith 7200 michael.smith 6784 chris.smith 6371 mike.smith 6149 arun.kumar 5980 james.smith 5939 amit.kumar 5926 imran.khan 5861 jason.smith
Or even the most common first or last names:
977014 michael 963693 john 924816 david 819879 chris 640957 mike 602088 james 584438 mark 515686 jason 503658 robert 484403 jessica 913465 smith 571819 johnson 512312 jones 503266 williams 471390 brown 386764 lee 360010 khan 355639 singh 343220 kumar 324972 miller
So, those are the top 10 lists. But I'll bet you want everything!
The Torrent
But it occurred to me that this is public information that Facebook puts out, I'm assuming for search engines or whatever, and that it wouldn't be right for me to keep it private. Why waste Facebook's bandwidth and make everybody scrape it, right?
So, I present you with: a torrent! If you haven't download it, download it now! And seed it for as long as you can.
This torrent contains:
- The URL of every searchable Facebook user's profile
- The name of every searchable Facebook user, both unique and by count (perfect for post-processing, datamining, etc)
- Processed lists, including first names with count, last names with count, potential usernames with count, etc
- The programs I used to generate everything
So, there you have it: lots of awesome data from Facebook. Now, I just have to find one more problem with Facebook so I can write "Revenge of the Facebook Snatchers" and complete the trilogy. Any suggestions? >:-)
So far, I have only indexed the searchable users, not their friends. Getting their friends will be significantly more data to process, and I don't have those capabilities right now. I'd like to tackle that in the future, though, so if anybody has any bandwidth they'd like to donate, all I need is an ssh account and Nmap installed.
An additional limitation is that these are only users whose first characters are from the latin charset. I plan to add non-Latin names in future releases.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Venue: DCL&A conference room, 133-144 Pearse Street, Dublin 2 |
- Friday 26 July
- Friday 9 August
- Friday 16 August
A number of Irish family history organisations, including the Association of Professional Genealogists of Ireland (APGI), the Irish Genealogical Research Society, the Irish Family History Society, the Genealogical Society of Ireland and Ancestor Network, will have information stands, and Dublin City Libraries & Archive will be showcasing its wide range of genealogical resources.
The Open Days will be held 10:30am to 4:30pm on each of the Fridays. Everything will be free, and it's a great opportunity for beginners, experts and tourists to start exploring or progress their family research.
More info: www.dublincitypubliclibraries.ie. Tel: 00 353 (0)1-6744870 or (0)1-6744800.


text:
Forget Lulu, I'M The One on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
I am the first to admit that I am prone to hyperbole and that I have a tendency to be a drama queen but I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I tell you that General Hospital is so relentlessly awful right now that it is LITERALLY BREAKING MY BRAIN. LITERALLY.
(Seriously, earlier today, I forgot my voicemail password and stared at my cell phone, slack jawed, for minutes. And when I paid for a latte at Starbucks, I gave the barista the wrong amount of change...twice. Either I have a concussion from hitting my head on a shelf at Marshall's, or GH is causing me mental anguish. When in doubt, I blame GH)
I find myself with so many questions as I watch the show (questions that I ask out loud to an empty room which, again, BROKEN BRAIN):
- Why is Claudia involved in every story on the show? I'm a certified Sarah Brown fan, so if I am irritated by her constant presence onscreen, how annoyed are her haters?
- It's 2008, right? Which makes Spinelli's endless complaining about how he should be the one saving Maxie and not vice versa totally lame, right?
- On what planet is the introduction of a new mobster even in the same hemisphere as entertaining? I think that at this point even Steve Burton is like, "SERIOUSLY? We're doing this again? Are you freaking kidding me? And people make fun of me for not doing anything new and original this century? Let me guess, I'm going to put on a black t-shirt and jeans and get shot at. Am I right? Seriously?"
- Was there any point to Claudia, Carly and Jason being part of a shootout at the warehouse other than "Hee! We have two Carlys in one scene with Jason. Hee! Carly and Jason and CarlyClaudia are awesome! Hee!"?
- Why do the writers even try to present the possibility that Our Lord and Savior Jason is going to get killed in one of the many shootouts he's involved in? Is it just to get our hopes up in order to cruelly dash them? Or do they think the audience is dumb enough to get emotionally invested?
And, most importantly, how on earth does ANYBODY think this show is entertaining? What is the thought process that goes in to writing these stories? Is there any thought process going in to writing these stories?
The more I think about it, the more it makes my head hurt and then I make a face kind of like this:
This effing show.
Lulu and Johnny on the run is so mind-numbingly boring that I've had to turn to a thesaurus for new and exciting words to describe it. The story is not only achingly tiresome, but also soul crushingly tedious. Even Brandon Barash can't keep his obvious boredom off of his face and at times seems mere seconds away from smothering Julie Marie Berman with a pillow so that this "exciting" "adventure" will finally be over
I'm with you there, Brandon.
It's hard to say what the worst part of the story is: Julie Marie Berman's sudden inability to act convincingly with anybody except for the wig playing Laura? The fact that Johnny and Lulu ran away with seemingly an entire year's worth of cute outfits with them? The fact that NOTHING ABOUT IT MAKES ANY SENSE?
Well, there are two parts that stand out in terms of awfulness:
(1) Lourdes. What the hell? Who is this girl? Did she win a contest? Did the actual actress who was cast for the part get sick and they needed to pull someone off the street to fill in? I cringe whenever she climbs through the window to screech and pout at Johnny and Logan. If I ever saw her out and about, I'd have to cross over to the other side of the street to make sure I wouldn't do something Crazy and horrible, like offer her money to pay for acting classes.
I've seen some pretty unintentionally hilarious shit on this show in recent times, but this is threat level midnight.
Did they blow the rest of their 2008 budget on Vincent Pastore? Because a massive lack of funding is the only explanation I've come up with for someone thinking "Scary hallucination pushing Lulu to the brink of insanity" and coming up with "Someone telling ghost stories at a second grade slumber party". When are we going to play Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board, Logan?
I can see someone laughing so hard at this that they injure themselves, sure, or someone crying so hard at what this show has become that they burst a blood vessel, but a nervous breakdown? Nah.
There were a lot of rumors swirling about Josh Duhon being difficult on the GH set, but I commend him for not running away and living in Brazil under an assumed name rather than take part in these scenes.
Kate is
(a) playing Blanche Deveroux in the Port Charles dinner theater production of "The Best of The Golden Girls"
(b) The editor of a fashion magazine FOR THE BLIND
Although I suppose on a show where Carly is the great heroine in the history of ever, it's not out of the realm of possibility that the town fashionista wears outfits made of cupcake tins.
Okay, I don't have screencaps to prove it, but! This show continues to have no clue as to how to utilize a fake pregnancy belly, because Robin's stomach grew tremendously over the course of today's episode. Part of me expected Kelly to say "You're not having a boy or a girl, you're having a fucking freak of nature. What the hell kind of steroids are you on, Robin?"
(Part of me also expected Kelly to invent some new gender when she read the ultrasound, but that is neither here nor there)


text:
Taylor Swift |
The 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together' hitmaker is facing a lawsuit after being paid in advance to headline a country music festival in Canada which has since been cancelled, reports TMZ.
Promoters for Capital Hoedown - which was due to take place in Ottawa in August 2012 - reportedly failed to put the concert together in time and it was subsequently nixed. Now the company which sold tickets for the event feels Taylor, 22, should use her sizeable fee to refund $1.8 million worth of ticket purchases, according to documents filed in New York federal court.
The singer's representatives contest, however, that her deal was not with the ticket company and thus she is not liable for the refunds. They also claim they have not yet seen the lawsuit.
Taylor has had previous brushes with the law; in 2010 she was reportedly sued by former manager Dan Dymtrow for breach of contract. He claimed he signed the 'I Knew You Were Trouble' singer aged 14 and helped her launch her career but her family conspired to fire him before he could earn a commission from her sales.
Dan's attorney Fernando Pinguelo said at the time: "They delayed and delayed [the deal] and got rid of my client and subsequently signed [another] deal and kept his commissions for themselves."


text:
Chairman Jon Wellinghoff Statement
June 21, 2012
Docket No. IN12-16-000
Item No. A-3
"A recurring cause in this and many blackouts has been vegetation-related outages. Environmental issues, property rights and cost, among other things, play an important role in every company's vegetation management program. In my view, the most successful vegetation management program have, as one of the core elements, a strategy to engage the property owners in an adequate, timely and forthright manner and to work cooperatively with those property owners.
For example, it is important to give the property owner sufficient notice about the impending activity including the type of vegetation management that is planned - for instance trimming or herbicide application. In some cases, a company may get the property owner to agree to the planned action by simply switching methodologies say from herbicide application to trimming.
Successful vegetation management programs also help property owners maintain and even enhance the environmental benefits and aesthetics of the right-of-way while ensuring sufficient clearance between the vegetation and energized conductors. For example, trees that are expected to grow into the transmission lines are removed and replaced with lower growing native species that provide a shelter for indigenous wildlife. Another practice that property owners appreciate is a small tree voucher program that allows them to select smaller trees from nurseries to replace the larger trees that are removed from the right-of-way. These efforts may even help persuade property owners to allow vegetation management outside of both jurisdictional facilities and the existing right-of-ways.
The current reliability standard FAC-003 requires both a formal transmission vegetation management plan and an annual plan for vegetation management work. I believe that companies should make these plans available to the public, including the affected landowners, by posting them on their website.
I urge all companies to include these components in their vegetation management programs.
As a final point, we continue to receive complaints that utilities are clear-cutting right-of-ways in order to comply with reliability standard FAC-003. In some cases, reliability standard FAC-003 has been cited as the reason for clear-cutting even when it does not apply, e.g. transmission lines below 200 kV and distribution lines. The standard only requires that a minimum clearance be maintained and does not prescribe the methodology that utilities are required to use. Companies should not misrepresent the reason for the vegetation action by overstating the requirements or applicability of the standard."


text:
| ||||
Honda's Hydrogen Powered Sports Concept 30th November, 2008 | |||
Honda revealed the FC Sport design study model, a hydrogen-powered three-seat sports car concept at the 2008 Los Angeles Motor Show. The FC Sport emphasises the design, flexibility and potential of Honda's V Flow fuel cell technology – already deployed in the Honda FCX Clarity sedan and reconfigures it into a lightweight sports car design with an ultra-low centre of gravity, powerful electric motor performance and zero-emissions. The design study concept is inspired by super-car levels of performance through low weight and a high-performance, electrically driven fuel cell power-train. "The Honda FC Sport explores how to satisfy automotive performance enthusiasts in a world beyond petroleum," said Dan Bonawitz, Vice President of American Honda Motor Co., Inc. "People who love sports cars will still have a reason to love in a hydrogen-powered future." The high-output Honda fuel cell powertrain and a sleek, aerodynamic body contribute to the vehicle's performance potential. A modular approach to fuel cell component packaging and the electric drive-train contribute to the FC Sport's low centre of gravity with the majority of vehicle mass distributed between the axles, providing the balanced weight distribution sought after in sports cars. The ideal placement of the Honda V-Flow fuel cell stack and related components demonstrates the benefits of a platform-specific, hydrogen-powered fuel cell power-train. The FC Sport is configured to accommodate a custom-formed high-power fuel cell stack, located between the rear seats, and a battery pack placed low in the middle of the vehicle. The electric motor resides just forward of the rear axle. Two fuel storage tanks, visible from above, are located above the rear axle. The optimal placement of fuel cell components for performance also allows for a relatively large passenger cabin by conventional super car standards with enough space for three seating positions. The interior layout focuses primarily on the driver with a race car-like centre driving position. The enclosed canopy opens upward from the rear to allow for entry and exit. Two rear passenger seats flank the driver's left and right side. The sleek, low profile body is designed to convey a high technology appearance with sculpting that combines angular shapes in the front of the vehicle that taper into geometric, hex forms in the rear. The rear hex forms house cooling radiators for the fuel cell. Formula 1 style barge boards behind the front wheels enhance high speed aerodynamics and convey the vehicle's racing pedigree. The hydrogen storage tanks, visible from the rear deck, showcase the FC Sports fuel cell technology in much the same way that a "naked bike" motorcycle showcases its engineering technology. The glacier white body colour conveys the FC Sport's clean environmental aspirations while the dark wheels and deeply tinted glass provide a symbolic contrast befitting of the vehicle's unique combination of clean power and high performance. Green construction techniques further contribute to a reduced carbon footprint. An organic, bio-structure theme is carried through to the body construction where exterior panels are intended to use plant derived bio-plastics. The Advanced Design Studio of Honda R&D Americas, in Pasadena, California, developed the FC Sport design study with the primary objective of using existing fuel cell technology as the basis for an ultimate Honda sports car. Designer Jason Wilbur led the design efforts. Honda R&D Americas, Inc. began its operations in California in 1975 with local market research activities and has steadily grown its capabilities over the past 33 years to include all aspects of new vehicle design and development. Recent development efforts include products such as the Honda Pilot, Ridgeline, Element, Civic Coupe and Civic Si. In 2008, the company opened two new design centres in Southern California: the Acura Design Studio (Torrance), for the research and design of new Acura products; and the Advanced Design Studio (Pasadena), for the exploration and development of advanced design themes for both Honda and Acura. The company operates 11 major R&D facilities in North America, including a full vehicle development centre in Raymond, Ohio and three design studios in Southern California. Honda R&D designers, engineers and support personnel are engaged in the development of Honda and Acura automobiles, powersports products, and power equipment for North America and global markets. The company's main centres of operation include the Los Angeles Centre (Torrance, California), responsible for market research, concept development and styling design; the Ohio Centre (Raymond, Ohio), responsible for complete product development, testing, and support of North American supplier and manufacturing operations; and a dynamic test facility in Cantil, California. |
All rights reserved. |


text:
Image Line FL Studio
FL Studio (formerly Fruityloops) is Image-Line's all in one software production suite for PC. FL Studio is a pattern based sequencer, which means you create your songs in pieces (patterns) using the Step Sequencer and the Piano Roll view and then weld those pieces together using the Playlist window (the Playlist also supports full-featured audio tracks with hard-drive streaming). Then you can add a wide range of effects to your instruments (reverb, phaser, flanger etc.) and route the resulting mixer tracks in any way you like to create complex mixing chains with ease. The resulting song or loop can be exported to a WAV/MP3 file and all MIDI events can be exported to a standard MIDI file.
Here is a brief review of the history of FL Studio (formerly Fruityloops):
FL Studio (formerly FruityLoops) for the PC has been called the ReBirth killer, and with good reason. At first glance it looks like a software-based Drum Machine, but look a little closer. It functions like a drum machine because it is a pattern based sequencer, just like Rebirth. However, more than just drum sounds can be assigned to each 'channel'. Loops, bass, synth sounds, effect sounds and samples can all be assigned to an unlimited number of 'channels'. Creating patterns is as simple as in ReBirth or any drum machine in which you set a tempo, start the loop and punch in your sounds.
The reason one might consider FL Studio a ReBirth killer is that it offers plenty more edit-ability of individual sounds and is more programmable than the latter. In addition to panning, volume, pitch and mix controls you'll find effects, envelope, resonance, cutoff, cut, reverse and more! FL Studio also sports the new TS-404 synth section to rival that ReBirth 303 sound. It also supports plug-ins, skins, external MIDI control and up to 64 notes per pattern.
Some additional features include an integrated BeatSlicer, live wheel recording of all wheels, unlimited number of channels (not just 8), support for 8 (VST&DX) FX tracks, integrated sample browser, cool effects to alter the samples, playlist allowing to mix several patterns, it can now act as master clock for sync, sends start / stop / clock / SPP. If you loved ReBirth, you'll certainly be interested in FL Studio. With it you can make ultimately more unique and different sounding music, rather than something that sounds like it was made on a ReBirth! FL Studio is being used by Mike Oldfield, Hellfish, Dan Hekate, Somatic Responses, Heretik, and Sonic Belligeranza.
Version 2.7 of FruityLoops offers: Integrated Beatslicer editor; Updated MP3 encoder for better quality; A couple of new great instrument presets; Alternate B-splines interpolator in event editor; Added the use of presets (to envelope time wheels).
The next big version, 3.3 offers: ASIO support, BUZZ Machine & BUZZ Effects support, New Fruity Plugins (Parametric Equalizer, Delay 2 Fruity, Stereo Enhancer, Granulizer Fruity, Spectroman), Internal Controller, New Integrated BeatSlicer, Portamento, Velocity & Keyboard tracking to all channels, Multichannel MIDI file import, Multiple MIDI devices can now be controlled at once, and more!
FruityLoops version 3.4 adds SoundFont support and the Fruity DX-10 FM Synth add-on. Additional new features include Layer Channeling, Channel Filtering, Project Bones Export, and many more refinements. The upgrade from version 3.3 to 3.4 is free and downloadable for owners of the on-line version. However, the SoundFont and Fruity DX-10 FM Synth add-ons will cost $35 and $19, respectively.
New features in version 3.5 include: VST-compatability, multiple ASIO outputs, DrumSynth Live Generator ($19 add-on), batch export of FX tracks, step recording, copy / paste of automation data and more. The update from 3.4 to 3.5 is free!
In 2003, they released FL Studio v4, which replaced the Fruityloops software range. It added many new features including a new advanced 64 channel mixer, new audio tracks with waveform preview & support for cue points, direct-to-disk recording, integrated Wave Editor, 64 FX tracks, and a new "Piano Roll" style playlist. FL Studio version v4.1.2 includes a new virtual E-Guitar plugin called FL Slayer based on reFX's Slayer VSTi plugin technology. FL Slayer emulates three different pick-up types, four AMP models and four cabinets which are and freely adjustable. It even has 16 well liked effects, "Wah Wah", Tremolo, Phaser, Chorus and many more.
The new & improved FL Studio 5 adds Time-Stretching in Audio Tracks, Slicer and Sampler, Automation Clips & Improved Audio Clips to allow multipoint spline-based and LFO based automation, Tempo Tapping and support for slice markers and MP3 loading. New Plugins include FPC: a new self-contained drum machine plugin; WaveShaper: Graph based distortion with super sampling; VideoPlayer: Synchronized playback of video & flash content inside FL Studio. Improved Plugins include Sytrus: adds global envelopes, new curve types and more. Fruity Slicer: is improved to support our new slicing engine, .rex files & time stretching capabilities. Granulizer: is vastly improved (supports transients, new key-to modes). DrumSynth Live: now supports up to 120 patches at once.
FL Studio comes in four packages: Express, Fruityloops, Producer and XXL. FL Studio XXL is a package containing FL Studio Producer edition and all of its plugins including: SimSynth (FL, VSTi and DXi version included), WASP (FL, VSTi and DXi version included), DX-10 (FL, VSTi and DXi version included), Soundfont Player, DrumSynth Live, BeatSlicer and DreamStation. Visit www.flstudio.com for complete details.
Demos & Media
Images from www.flstudio.com.


text:
Name: Angie
Bio: Angie is a leading product marketer and technology
evangelist with 18 years of experience selling cutting edge solutions
2:15pm – 3:30pm Salon D
Name: Gary
Bio: Gary is a passionate innovator with a strong
entrepreneurial edge, known for his ability to help clients achieve
their goals through technology.
Twitter: @Garymanning77
Company name: IES Group
Website: www.iesgroup.ca
2:15pm – 3:30pm Salon D
TOPIC: Taking a Pinterest-Like Application to Market from London
A journey through the creation and launch of a new global
web and mobile application, leveraging design paradigms from Pinterest,
then going further.
Angie and Gary will talk about the innovative use of geo-location,
application monetization, having creative and technical skill sets under
one roof, and how one can do it all from London.
Pin It


text:
Shashok picked to fill Middlebury selectboard vacancy
MIDDLEBURY — The Middlebury selectboard on Monday welcomed a new member into the fold: Susan Shashok, a local entrepreneur who will for the next five months fill a vacancy created by Selectwoman Janelle Ashley's recent resignation.
Shashok and fellow East Middlebury resident Eric Murray had both declared interest in succeeding Ashley until the next municipal elections in March. At that point, the remaining year on Ashley's term will be up for grabs on the Town Meeting Day ballot.
"I'm very happy," said Shashok, 45, who received the support of four board members and plans to run for the position next March. "I know how much work is ahead, but I am happy to do it. I'm very happy to be participating."
The board interviewed both Shashok and Murray on Tuesday, asking them questions about what they would like to accomplish while on the board. Both indicated an interest in promoting economic development, including nurturing businesses already here, and keeping local property taxes as low as possible while maintaining the services residents have come to expect.
"I don't take my commitments lightly," Shashok told the selectboard. "I do my homework."
Shashok and her husband Alan have lived in East Middlebury for the past 18 years, moving there after a two-year stay in Middlebury. They have two sons, Nikolas and Alexander, both of whom attend Middlebury public schools.
Shashok holds a bachelor of science in Food Marketing and Agribusiness from UVM, and has held managerial positions at a Ben & Jerry's franchise, the catering department at Middlebury College, and the Middlebury Natural Foods Cooperative.
She currently owns and operates "Caroline's Dream," a small business that makes handcrafted Vermont skin care products that she markets wholesale and retail in the U.S. and Canada. She is also an East Middlebury water system operator.
Shashok's civic résumé includes two years on the Addison County Humane Society Board of Directors, six years on the Middlebury Natural Foods Cooperative board and three years on the East Middlebury Prudential Committee (half of that time spent as chairwoman).
She helped represent her community in trying to influence some local projects, most notably the proposed expansion of the J.P. Carrara & Sons gravel pit off Schoolhouse Hill Road and the installation of additional crosswalks along Rte 125.
"As a result of my work on the gravel pit expansion and as a water system operator, I am familiar with some of the technical issues — such as hydrology, air quality, noise and infrastructure support — that the selectboard sometimes addresses," Shashok wrote in her letter of interest for the Ashley vacancy.
Murray, a lifelong Middlebury resident, ran unsuccessfully for the board in March. Murray is the owner of East Middlebury-based EJM Enterprises — a company that specializes in heavy equipment and truck repairs, as well as towing.
He also previously ran for a seat on the board, losing a close race around a dozen years ago to former selectman Max Eaton before finishing on the short end this past March in a three-way race for two seats.
"I'd like to be able to contribute to the community and perhaps be able to help shape the growth and help steer the community in the direction residents would like," Murray said. "I was thinking it was time to give back a little."
While a majority of the board picked Shashok, they urged Murray to maintain his interest.
"The third time was the charm for me," Selectman Craig Bingham told Murray after the vote.
Also at Monday's meeting, selectmen agreed to hold a meeting in East Middlebury within the next few weeks to talk about excavation work that occurred in the Middlebury River following Tropical Storm Irene.
The magnitude of that work and questions about whether the town received the requisite state permission before embarking on the project has drawn criticism among some local residents and environmental groups. The New Haven River Anglers Association, in particular, has voiced concerns that excavation and the buttressing of shoreline might have done serious harm to the Middlebury River's fish habitat. Some East Middlebury residents are concerned that the work might be setting the stage for worse damage further downstream during the next flood event.
"We are seeing different reports, and I expect we will see more reports," Tenny said of the river work. "Somewhere in all this, there is a compromise."
In other action on Monday, the Middlebury selectboard:
• Presided over a special town meeting featuring an overview of a $4.8 million plan to upgrade the Middlebury and East Middlebury fire stations. The special meeting was a precursor to Tuesday's Australian ballot vote for $250,000 to take the plans to final design (see related story). The balance of the project will be up for a Town Meeting Day vote.
• Picked Dr. Hannah Benz to serve as the town's next health officer, succeeding the late Dr. Robert LaFiandra. Benz received the requisite four votes to secure the post over a second candidate, longtime Deputy Health Officer Tom Scanlon.
Reporter John Flowers is at [email protected].


text:
"Ah, America! Built by the blacks and owned by the Chinese!" —Admiral General Haffaz Aladeen of Wadiya
Sacha Baron Cohen's The Dictator is literally a take-no-prisoners comedy. Get on the bad side of Cohen's latest character, Admiral General Haffaz Aladeen, and out of your eyesight, he'll make a throat-slitting gesture indicating he wants you offed.
That running gag is one of the mildest in Cohen's willfully outrageous attempt to top his previous features with director Larry Charles: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan and Brüno. Though The Dictator abandons the mock-documentary style of those films, the filmmakers strike pretty much the same comedic notes, to generally diminished returns.
Certainly in 2012, a brutal dictator qualifies as an easy target for comedy (that wasn't true in 1940, when Charlie Chaplin released The Great Dictator, to which The Dictator implicitly nods). The racist Aladeen allows Cohen to make another round of blistering satirical gags about still-thriving anti-Semitism and sexism, buttons Cohen pushed repeatedly with Borat. This time, Cohen also baits African-American outrage with an over-the-top sequence involving a black corpse and an absurd appropriation of "I Have a Dream" ("Oppressed at last...").
The premise sounds more promising than what Cohen and Charles deliver: Aladeen finds himself ousted by his uncle Tamir (Ben Kingsley) the long-suffering rightful heir to the dictatorship of fictional North African nation Wadiya. The Prince and the Pauper-style switcheroo of double Efawadh (also Cohen) leaves the real Aladeen lost in New York, and dependent on the kindness of stranger Zoey (Anna Faris), a Vegan anti-corporate feminist. While Tamir leverages a U.N. appearance and a move to democracy to get rich off oil money, Aladeen plots to reclaim his role.
Cohen's act wears thin with his "r"-rolling, blithely selfish Aladeen, and given the shrill scatology, The Dictator comes dangerously close to a bad Adam Sandler comedy (perhaps You Don't Mess with the Zohan). Still, The Dictator has several memorable moments, including a 9/11 run satirizing lingering "War on Terror" fears, and an absurd skit on a zip-line (capped with what's by now an old-hat nudity "shocker").
The Dictator comes packed with cameos from the comedy elite, but best-in-show may go to Jason Mantzoukas for his fairly subtle straight-man work as nuclear scientist/terrorist Nadal. Make no mistake, though: writers Cohen & Alec Berg & David Mandel & Jeff Schaffer keep the focus squarely on their star and, in the process, ask us to root for a racist, sexist rapist to achieve his goals, including winning the heart of the totally inappropriate, Free Earth Collective-running Zoey (what Aladeen really wants is a cuddle).
The undeniable charge to Cohen's subversion (old news though it may be) unexpectedly proves strongest when the star bites the hand that feeds him, by suggesting that Hollywood celebrities are literal prostitutes (for decades, rumors have suggested that a handful at any given time have been). The Dictator saves up its real nuclear-level threat for a climactic monologue, in which Aladeen indirectly demonstrates America's lack of personal freedom. On its own, this daring breach of the multiplex is almost enough to excuse the misfired gags that come before.
[This review first appeared in Palo Alto Weekly.]
Paramount sends home The Dictator in a Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy special edition featuring a new Banned & Unrated Cut (98m), the Theatrical Cut (83m), solid A/V specs and a smattering of extras. The hi-def transfer ably renders its digital source, with only minor and rare distractions (a bit of shimmering here, a touch of banding there) to a generally sharp and detailed image with wholly accurate color and excellent contrast and black level. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix doesn't get tested very hard by the mostly ordinary demands of this comedy, but dialogue is always clear, music and effects are robust, and the separation gives a bit of fullness to the soundscape with some immersive ambience.
Fifteen "Deleted and Extended Scenes" (33:43, HD) include "Newsnight Interview," "Nuclear Diary," "Deathbed Flashback," "Assemble the Generals," "Meet Clayton," "Aladeen Steals Food," "Apple Store," "Death to Aladeen Restaurant," "Manhattan Zoo," "Funeral Parlor," "A Gift For Zoey," "Tit Fight," "The Birthing," "The Rooftop," and "A Final Word." Also included are "Best Love Song 'Your Money is on the Dresser' featuring Aladeen Music Video" (1:35, HD) and another extended scene, the "Larry King Interview" (2:49, HD).
Review gear: |
Panasonic Viera TC-P55VT30 55" Plasma 1080p 3D HDTV
Oppo BDP-93 Universal Network 3D Blu-ray Disc Player
Denon AVR2112CI Integrated Network A/V Surround Receiver
Pioneer SP-BS41-LR Bookshelf Speaker (2)
Pioneer SP-C21 Center Speaker
Pioneer SW-8 Subwoofer


text:
International Airport Information
Minneapolis - St. Paul International Airport (MSP) is located just 10-15 minutes north of Apple Valley. One of the world's busiest yet safest airports, it ranks among the top U.S. airports for on-time arrivals and is legendary for its ability to handle ice and snow. Service includes more than 1,200 takeoffs and landings daily, two foreign flag carriers, eleven regional airlines, eight major U.S. airlines, 18 charter airlines, and 16 cargo carriers.
The Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) opened the 8,000-foot north-south runway 17/35, adding 25% more capacity at MSP and allowing the airport to meet future demand for air service both nationally and internationally.


text:
Footage showing police officers pinning a Labour MP's researcher to the ground outside the Houses of Parliament - in what the researcher says was an unprovoked attack - has been released for the first time.
The conduct of the Crown Prosecution Service has been called into question after the collapse of criminal proceedings against the Labour researcher. 28 year-old Alex Bryce, who works for the Labour MP Tom Blenkinsop, was arrested on the 28th of June 2011 along with his partner, Iain Feis, outside Parliament. The men were subsequently charged with assaulting and obstructing a police officer, on the basis of claims made by two constables working in Westminster that evening.
The case proceeded to court in December and almost immediately collapsed when CCTV images undermined several key claims by the officers, including that the men had "charged" at the officers. Instead the CCTV footage, handed to HuffPost UK by the researcher, shows Ian Feis walking along Bridge Street, underneath Big Ben, appearing to mind his own business, before being thrown to the wall by one of the officers.
The CCTV then shows the man being pinned down by one police officer, before another officer joins in. According to Alex Bryce, one of the officers had earlier seized his Parliamentary pass having heard one of a group of five people swearing outside the gates of Parliament. This initial altercation was not covered by CCTV, despite being directly outside one of the most important buildings in Britain.
The police then claimed that Bryce's civil partner ran away from police up a busy street, although CCTV footage subsequently showed Ian Feis walking calmly up Bridge Street, with no other pedestrians in sight. Cameras then recorded one of the officers seizing Ian Feis and pinning him to the wall, before bringing him to the ground.
In court the officers were unable to justify why they took this course of action, and why the CCTV was unable to support their version of events.
Alex Bryce then joins his partner in the CCTV images, and is also brought to the ground. At one point in the CCTV footage one of the officers is clearly seen punching Alex Bryce in the face as he remained pinned to the floor.
The district judge presiding over the case is said to have suggested the prosecution abandon the trial. It is unclear why the CPS allowed the trial to go to court when the CCTV images so clearly contradicted statements made by the two officers. The defendants had requested the CPS release to their counsel the CCTV images before the trial. Despite this the first time the defendants were able to view the footage was on the first day of their trial.
Alex Bryce was suspended from his job in Parliament for six months pending the trial and has now complained to the Crown Prosecution Service and the Independent Police Complaints Commission about his treatment. He is due to return to work at the end of January having been cleared. "I feel disillusioned with the whole system, It was a case of guilty until proven innocent," he told HuffPost UK. "In politics mud sticks, I feel I had a good reputation which has been damaged. A lot people have been incredibly supportive but some people haven't.
"The amount of stress that we and our families have been put through is incredible. Our families believed our accounts but they hadn't seen the CCTV footage. When they saw the images there was no cause for anyone to have any doubts about what we'd said."
Describing the police officer as "completely irrrational", Bryce claimed officers had operated outside of the law.
"The guy had a problem, I don't know what the problem was. These two police officers have clearly spent their careers thinking they can just push people around. Parliament made no attempts to see the CCTV footage, my account was never asked for.
"Not only has this been a traumatic experience for us, the spectacular incompetence of both the CPS and the Met demonstrated in this case has cost the tax payer a fortune."
The Speaker of the House of Commons has said it's a matter for the Metropolitan Police because the incident took place outside the Parliamentary estate.
The CPS and Metropolitan police have not responded to HuffPost UK's inquiries or requests for comment.


text:
'); document.write(''); //--> |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Following up on their rather good double feature presentation of Battle Beyond the Sun & Star Pilot, Retromedia graces us with a pair of Russian fairy tale fantasies in their altered American versions. Purchased outright by American entrepreneurs, both were redubbed and their stories changed considerably to better market them for audiences expecting more definable genres: one became a "Sinbad" epic, and the other a science fiction film. In the early 1990s Video Watchdog magazine had a series of interesting articles on the original Russian movies, identifying their maker as Alexsandr Ptushko, a camera veteran that had worked since the 1930s. His biggest release in America was The Sword and the Dragon, a redub of a vast saga called Ilya Muromets. Although the originals may have seen screenings in arthouse theaters in their original forms, the Yankee redubs obscured the films' source by giving the actors and technicians Anglicized names in the credits. For instance, in its transformation to The Magic Voyage of Sinbad by Roger Corman's acolyte Francis Coppola, Ptushko's directorial credit was changed to "Joseph Moss," with the whole film listed as being produced by a company called "Mossfilm." The Cold War seems to have provided an excuse for all kinds of cultural piracy. Today these titles are slowly being released on Region One discs by the Ruscico company - in their original versions. Retromedia gives us a good opportunity to see how they were vandalized for American screens.
The film Sadko did receive a New York run through Artkino in 1953. Ten years later, it returned from obscurity disguised as a Sinbad picture even though all the leading characters dress and behave like medieval Ukranians. Lavishly produced in delicate color (I presume), the episodic adventure moves in fits and starts but has a couple of truly wonderful sequences that are worthy of The Thief of Bagdad. The sincere hero seriously wants to help his people and moves Heaven and Earth to bring them contentment, even if he has to steal it from some other country in the form of a legendary Bird of Happiness. In a combination of Jason and the Argonauts and The Wizard of Oz, Sadko/Sinbad scours the world for a magical treasure, only to find that happiness was always right back in the sunny city he came from. Assuming for the moment that there might be a political message in the movie (the 1953 Soviet Union? Do you think it's possible?) and that the English language script is similar to the original, Sadko basically tells the story of a natural leader who learns that happiness cannot be bought, found or stolen. The Truth is that leaders need to inspire the people first and provide for them second. After a slow start, the film does indeed work up an impressive fantasy atmosphere. Bathed in a shimmering aura of light, a beautiful water fairy rises from a lake to inspire and advise Sadko. The opening reels concentrate on dialogue in front of impressive sets representing the city walls but tend to be static, and a brief battle with Vikings early in Sinbad's voyage isn't all that special either. But the India sequence is a stunner, making use of what must be a large cast of circus performers. Elephants dance and pose, and then fall asleep in a magic spell along with the Maharaja's armies. Sinbad cruises through the market place on a majestic prancing horse, and plays a crucial game of chess with his devious host while a bevy of harem girls try to interrupt his concentration. A forbidding passage to a secret tower is a creepy view revealed through huge iron doors. At the top of a vertiginous staircase is revealed a unique creation, a Phoenix-bird with a female head that speaks in riddles and can hypnotize with its voice. The scene has some phenomenal design and special effects that make excellent use of color and rear projection. When the Phoenix tells the intruders they are getting sleepy, the walls seem to melt and waver in subjective harmony with her voice. The placid, sphinx-like female head atop the body of a vulture is an excellent effect similar to the malevolent alien mastermind of Invaders from Mars. A visit to Neptune's lair under the sea is decorative and jolly, with the king and his wife Neptuna dancing to the music of Sinbad/Sadko's little harp. The water fairy reveals herself as one of Neptune's daughters. She obligingly helps him escape back to the world above after he speaks of the girl he left behind. Even in this dubbed version it's a touching scene. Although broadly acted, the performances are sincere and the original film is probably very affecting. It looks as if The Magic Voyage of Sinbad was originally duped from a print or a so-so negative of the original film, for the color is subdued and the picture slightly soft and contrasty. Savant should have gone to see these pictures several years ago when the American Cinematheque showed export prints; I'd imagine the Phoenix scene is a stunner in an original print if it looks so good here. The sound and image are clear and unbroken, indicating that this might indeed be Roger Corman's own print of the film, re-jiggered in a rush for a 1962 release. The lone extra is a combined gallery of stills and theatrical artwork for both films in this double bill.
If Coppola sought to rip-off the success of 7th Voyage of Sinbad by retitling the very non-Arabian Nights tale Sadko, American International followed up with an even less defensible stretch. Sampo takes place in a fairy tale setting and follows the strife between an evil witch and a peaceful village; AIP sold it as The Day the Earth Froze, making it sound like the popular science fiction movies The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Day the Earth Caught Fire. Sampo is from 1959 but is just as basic in its storytelling as was Ptushko's previous fantasy. The AIP version appears to have been trimmed by a couple of reels and uses narration by Marvin Miller to hold its story together. The hero this time has no particular distinction except being blonde and skilled in running river rapids while balanced on a log. The similarly golden-haired Annikki is straight out of the fairy tales. Wild animals come from the forest to cuddle with her and birds perch happily on her fingers. When she walks, flowers instantly grow out of her footprints, much to the ire of Louhi's gnome-like henchmen. The film is darker and less lavish than Sadko but still has many impressive sets in the witch's polar kingdom under the Northern Lights, where trolls and wizards labor in underground workplaces. The theme has been updated from the Joe Stalin years ("I'm your leader, don't ask for favors") to the yearning for consumer goods in the Khruschev period. Everyone desires a Sampo, a kind of magical crystal heap that provides material goods (salt, flour, gold) by verbal command. One can't help but remember the Premier standing before some washing machines in NYC with Richard Nixon trying to be a friendly host; the message of Sampo seems to be that wishing for luxuries to make life easier is just asking for trouble and that people should stay in their little villages and stop grousing. The witch Louhi wants a Sampo as well, and her kidnapping of Annikki puts into motion a series of fantastic events. The special effects are managed more through clever design than hi-tech means. Louhi sends one of her evil black cloaks into the skies, and it becomes a black sail on the boat that whisks Annikki away. Her blacksmith brother forges first a glowing scarlet horse to plow the field of snakes (a nice effect), and then a sturdy iron boat with a masthead that looks like Bullwinkle the Moose. The Sampo itself is a crystalline oven with animated colored glows dancing about it. Even more interesting is a huge chamber where the imprisoned Annikki finds the four Winds held captive, bound up in canvas and heavy chains. They speak, imploring Annikki to set them free. It's a unique fantasy situation given a good treatment. Some effects are simply functional but the occasional scene can be very surprising. At one point a character leans up against a stone door and turns to stone as well. Lemminkäinen uses a magic sword to hack the door in two, and the person splits in two at the same time. The source story is said to be Finnish and the movie is a Soviet-Finnish co-production. It has been cut down by quite a bit, so presuming much from it about the original is probably not wise. American fans are going to relate to the title through a parody version shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000, one of the funniest episodes ever. All the characters keep whining about the lack of a Sampo ... I just remember my kids thinking it was terrific. If the MST3K is how you relate to old movies, you'll have to supply your own jokes for this one. Retromedia's double bill of The Magic Voyage of Sinbad and The Day the Earth Froze is a good encoding of good transfers of what appear to be original materials in good condition. It's not going to substitute for seeing the originals, but fans of bizarro import mutations of the kind usually available only as gray-market tapes, are going to be pleased. The cover art duplicates the key poster for Magic Voyage that puts Sadko in an Arabian Nights costume and gives the Phoenix bird a drastically altered plunging neckline. Sorry, but in the movie the humanoid buzzard doesn't have breasts.
On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
Review Staff | About DVD Talk | Newsletter Subscribe | Join DVD Talk Forum |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||


text:
Allied World Schedules First Quarter 2011 Earnings Announcement and Conference Call
ZUG, Switzerland, April 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied World Assurance Company Holdings, AG (NYSE: AWH) today announced that it will release its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2011, after the close of market on Wednesday, May 4, 2011.
Scott Carmilani, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Joan Dillard, Chief Financial Officer, will host a conference call on Thursday, May 5, 2011 at 9:00 am (Eastern Time) to discuss the first quarter 2011 financial results. This call will include a question and answer session.
The conference call can be accessed by dialing (877) 317-6701 (U.S. and Canada callers) or (412) 317-6701 (international callers) and entering the passcode 4757432 approximately ten minutes prior to the call. A live webcast of the call will be available online at www.awac.com. A replay of the call will be available through Thursday, May 19, 2011 by dialing (877) 344-7529 (U.S. and Canada callers) or (412) 317-0088 (international callers) and entering the passcode 449870. In addition, the webcast will remain available online through Thursday, May 19, 2011 at www.awac.com.
About Allied World Assurance Company
Allied World Assurance Company Holdings, AG, through its subsidiaries, is a global provider of innovative property, casualty and specialty insurance and reinsurance solutions, offering superior client service through a global network of branches and affiliates. Our insurance and reinsurance subsidiaries are rated A (Excellent) by A.M. Best Company, and our Lloyd's Syndicate 2232 is rated A+ (Strong) by Standard & Poor's and Fitch. Please visit our website at www.awac.com for further information on Allied World.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
Any forward-looking statements made in this press release reflect our current views with respect to future events and financial performance and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in these statements. For example, our forward-looking statements could be affected by pricing and policy term trends; increased competition; the impact of acts of terrorism and acts of war; greater frequency or severity of unpredictable catastrophic events; negative rating agency actions; the adequacy of our loss reserves; the company or its subsidiaries becoming subject to significant income taxes in the United States or elsewhere; changes in regulations or tax laws; changes in the availability, cost or quality of reinsurance or retrocessional coverage; adverse general economic conditions; and judicial, legislative, political and other governmental developments, as well as management's response to these factors, and other factors identified in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date on which they are made. We are under no obligation (and expressly disclaim any such obligation) to update or revise any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.
SOURCE Allied World Assurance Company Holdings, AG


text:
Vergennes seeks input on city plan
VERGENNES — Vergennes residents on Monday will have a chance to learn more about and weigh in on a new municipal plan that city officials are calling an update to the 2009 plan, not a rewrite.
The city planning commission has set a public hearing on the updated plan at 7 p.m. on Monday, June 30, in the Vergennes fire department basement meeting room.
Planning commission chairman Shannon Haggett handed a two-page summary of proposed changes to the Vergennes City Council on June 17, and that summary will be available at Monday's meeting.
On the 17th, Haggett told aldermen that planners have not made major revisions to a 2009 document that was honored as Vermont's municipal plan of the year, but has now reached its state-mandated five-year expiration date.
"The 2009 plan was a fantastic plan," Haggett said. "So we're not … making a lot of changes."
Mayor Bill Benton and aldermen said they appreciated that logic.
"Don't change it if it isn't broken," Benton said.
Haggett said he hopes to forward the plan update to the council soon after Monday's hearing. State law requires aldermen to hold at least two hearings before they can adopt it, something Haggett is optimistic can be done by September, a month before the current plan is set to expire.
"It is my hope that all of this will be completed by the end of September," he said.
Aldermen approved the 2009 plan after extensive public input, considerable debate at the council level, and a few late changes recommended by planners to soften some language. Most of those changes related to design standards for the existing Central Business and new Historic Neighborhood districts.
Plans do not create zoning, but form the basis upon which new zoning laws can be written. Among other things, the 2009 city plan laid the groundwork for the new Historic Neighborhood zone in the city's older residential areas and the new Northern Gateway district on North Main Street.
Within those districts, it provided for zoning laws that regulate the general appearance of downtown buildings and the placement of homes on lots in older neighborhoods.
The plan also allowed for new zoning that raises the application bar for and sets design limitations on franchise businesses, and in older neighborhoods rules that ease setback rules to allow homeowners to build structures like sheds, garages and decks closer to boundary lines, as had been already typical in those areas.
Now, the changes listed on the planning commission's two-page summary of the 2014 update include "clarified language" in sections on the Historic Neighborhood, Central Business and Northern Gateway districts "to reflect current regulations."
Haggett said the plan update includes the zoning changes made to comply with the 2009 plan.
"Perhaps a more appropriate way to identify these particular set of changes would have been to write 'Clarified language to acknowledge the work completed by the current regulations as a result of the 2009 plan,'" Haggett said in an email.
Many of the other changes, he said, just reflect new information on the city's schools, population, infrastructure such as the new police station; current fire department and public works equipment levels and needs, and the present status and activities of civic entities such as the Bixby Library, Vergennes Opera House and the Vergennes Partnership.
Asked what planners considered to be the most significant of the updates, Haggett responded in an email: "reaching out to experts for the various services and eliciting an update from them (e.g. the Chief of Police, Fire Chief, School staff, etc.) and then putting their words into a uniform voice for the document."
Also included is:
• information about the recent Vermont Council on Rural Development "Community Visit" process, and the effort to spur the city's economic sector that has grown out of it;
• the effort to upgrade recreation facilities;
• energy policies and upgrades, including a recommendation to explore creating a city energy committee;
• and a Middlebury College study on possible city bicycle and pedestrian improvements.
Those wishing to look at the updated 99-page plan may find it at Vergennes.org. A drop-down menu under the "Government" header on the top right includes "Zoning and Planning." Clicking on that box gives a series of choices in the middle of the screen, the bottom of which is the new plan in PDF form.
The standalone link reads: http://vergennes.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2014VergennesMDP.pdf.
More News
Bernard D. Kimball, 76, of Middlebury
MIDDLEBURY — Bernard D. Kimball, 76, passed away in Bennington Hospital on Jan. 10, 2023. … (read more)
News Uncategorized
Fresh Air Fund youths returning to county
The Fresh Air Fund, initiated in 1877 to give kids from New York City the opportunity to e … (read more)
Obituaries Uncategorized
Mark A. Nelson of Bristol
BRISTOL — A memorial service for Mark A. Nelson of Bristol will be held 1 p.m. on Saturday … (read more)


text:
The player who takes the fewest strokes might not win the Tour Championship because of the radical scoring change for the FedEx Cup in which the top seed will start at 10-under par with a two-shot advantage.
The PGA Tour will continue to keep a traditional score, even if it won't be published, so that world ranking points can be awarded.
The Official World Golf Ranking board met last week at the Masters and approved a PGA Tour proposal that awards full ranking points based on where players would have finished without the staggered start.
The No. 1 seed in the FedEx Cup starts the tournament at 10 under, with the No. 2 seed at 8 under, and then 7 under, 6 under and 5 under. The next five players start at 4 under, all the way down until Nos. 26 through 30 begin at even par.
Last year at East Lake, Tiger Woods won the Tour Championship at 11-under par, and Justin Rose, who finished tied for fourth at 6 under, won the FedEx Cup and the $10 million bonus.
Under the new system, Woods would have started at 2 under as the 20th seed, and thus finished at 13 under. Instead of winning and getting 62 ranking points, he would have finished second. Rose was at 6 under, but he would have started at 8 under as the No. 2 seed and finished at 14 under.
The world ranking could not have given Rose points for "winning" when his real score had him tied for fourth.
The Tour Championship has such a strong field that not awarding ranking points could have cost players endorsement money, because most contracts have an incentive tied to the world ranking. It's even more critical now because of how tight it is at the top.
Brooks Koepka finished the year at No. 1 by an average of 0.02 points.
Already this year, there have been four changes at the top of the ranking among Dustin Johnson, Koepka and Rose.
Tiger Woods officially resumed his chase of Jack Nicklaus and his 18 professional majors when he won the Masters for his 15th major title, and his first in nearly 11 years since the 2008 U.S. Open.
His better chance is a race no less prestigious — Sam Snead and his record 82 career PGA Tour victories.
The PGA Tour already has begun preparing for such a moment by publishing "Tiger Woods, Chasing 82" on its website. Along with a look at various segments in Woods' career — when he held all four majors, through swing changes, returning from various injuries — the tour goes deep in explaining how Snead reached 82 victories. He was once credited with 84 and then his total was reduced to 81, before the British Open was added.
It should come into view the next time Woods plays, which could be the Wells Fargo Championship the first week in May.
Woods first was asked about Snead's record in 2012, when he was at 73 victories. For so much of his career, the topic was always Nicklaus and his 18 majors.
"I was aware of it, but at the time, everyone focused on Jack's record," Woods said at Congressional in 2012. "But as I delved more into the game and was probably in high school, I started understanding Sam's contributions to the game of golf and his consistency. The fact that he won at age 52, when he won Greensboro, and to do it for that long is amazing. Truly amazing."
Lost in all the excitement over Tiger Woods winning the Masters for the fifth time was a battle to the end to be low amateur.
Viktor Hovland of Norway, a junior at Oklahoma State, made bogey on his final hole, the par-4 ninth. That dropped him into a tie with Alvaro Ortiz of Mexico, who finished his college career at Arkansas.
Ortiz then finished with a bogey at No. 9 to finish one back of Hovland.
They were among four amateurs who made the cut and were vying for the sterling silver cup, and a spot in Butler Cabin for the green jacket presentation to the winner, which turned out to be Woods.
"I'm pretty happy with my performance, just making the cut and showing that I can play out here," said Hovland, who finished at 3-under 285 and shot par or better all four rounds.
Ortiz thought 4 under was required to be low amateur, and after a birdie on the par-5 eighth to get to 3 under, he played aggressively to a left pin and went into a bunker, failing to save par. He shot 69 and finished at 286.
"At the end of the day, I know that I played great golf and I gave myself a chance and I'm just proud of the way I came back from the round yesterday and played some excellent golf," Ortiz said.
He congratulated Hovland and said, "I really like that guy and I think he's going to go far in his career."
The other two amateurs to make the cut were Devon Bling and Takumi Kanaya, who shot 68 on Saturday and 78 on Sunday.
The last time four amateurs made the cut at the Masters was in 1999, and two of them went on to wear green jackets — Sergio Garcia, who was low amateur that year, and Trevor Immelman.
Now it's the women's turn to take on Erin Hills, the site of the 2017 U.S. Open that was built for wind and held during a week without much of a breeze.
The USGA announced Tuesday the 2025 U.S. Women's Open will be played at Erin Hills, where Justin Thomas shot a 63 in the third round and Brooks Koepka won his first U.S. Open title at 16-under 272. Scores were so low that week that a record seven players finished at 10 under or better.
The U.S. Mid-Amateur also is going to Erin Hills in 2022. Previously, the U.S. Amateur in 2011 and the U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links in 2008 were at Erin Hills.
"To bring these championships to a public facility all golfers can enjoy is especially exciting for us," USGA chief executive Mike Davis said.
It will be the third time the U.S. Women's Open goes to Wisconsin. The other two were at Blackwolf Run, where Se Ri Pak won in 1998 and Na Yeon Choi won in 2012.
Still to be determined is whether Erin Hills gets back on the map for a U.S. Open.
It was the second time in three years the U.S. Open went to a new course open for public play. The other was in Chambers Bay outside Tacoma, Washington, in 2015, where unseasonable weather and fescue greens led to uneven putting surfaces.
Chambers Bay is getting the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship in 2021.
Tiger Woods became the ninth player to win major championship in his 20s, 30s and 40s. The others were Ernie Els, Hale Irwin, Raymond Floyd, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, J.H. Taylor and Harry Vardon. … Leona Maguire of Ireland has received a special exemption to the Women's PGA Championship this year at Hazeltine. Maguire was an All-American all four years at Duke and tied for 21st in the 2016 Olympics. She also played three times in the Curtis Cup. … Woods has gone 22 years between his first and most recent major victory. It's an even longer drought for his caddie, Joe LaCava, who went 27 years from when he was on the bag for Fred Couples in the 1992 Masters and Woods this year. … The PGA Tour Champions has two former Major League Baseball pitches in the field this week outside Atlanta — John Smoltz and Shigetoshi Hasegawa, who pitched for the Mariners and Angels.
Tiger Woods' victory in the Masters guarantees that he will be fully exempt into every major championship for the first 27 years of his pro career.
"What happened during the last year for Tiger is an inspiration for everyone. He's a good example of passion for sport, discipline in terms of hard work. And love for the game, no?" — Rafael Nadal.
Credit : Associated Press (AP) | Photo Credit : (AP)


text:
Good (Guth) family
Good, a German Mennonite family name, originally Guth. Among the pioneers of the Good family in America were Jacob and Christian Good, who immigrated from the Palatinate in the early 18th century and settled in eastern Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. In this region there is both a village named Goodville in the western part of the county near Elizabethtown, and a Good Mennonite Church (MC). Christian Good (1772-1839), grandson of the first Christian, served as minister at Bowmansville, PA. Jacob Good, son of the first Jacob, moved to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where his descendants have been active, including Bishop Daniel (1781-1850) and Bishop Christian (18421916). Descendants of both Lancaster and Virginia Goods have moved to Mennonite congregations in Ontario, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. Among the latter were Bishop John S. Good (1811-1899) of Page County., Iowa, Bishop A. C. Good (1881- ) of Sterling, IL, Deacon Sol R. Good of Sterling, IL, and Bishop Kenneth Good (1910- ) of Morton, IL. Preacher Noah G. Good (1904- ) was dean of the Lancaster Mennonite School, I. B. Good was a prominent Lancaster County preacher, and Andrew Good and C. N. Good (1869-1967) were outstanding elders in the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church.
Some Amish Mennonite Guths who immigrated from Alsace-Lorraine in the 19th century to Illinois and Iowa have retained the spelling Guth.
See also Guth (Gut) family
Author(s) | Harold S Bender |
Date Published | 1955 |
Cite This Article
MLA style
Bender, Harold S. "Good (Guth) family." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1955. Web. 23 Feb 2024. https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Good_(Guth)_family&oldid=119890.
APA style
Bender, Harold S. (1955). Good (Guth) family. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 23 February 2024, from https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Good_(Guth)_family&oldid=119890.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, p. 540. All rights reserved.
©1996-2024 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.